I signaled the two junior members of the patrol, Al and Andy, to pull security while Jim and I lay on the ground behind our rucks, close to the southern edge of our RON.
“Jim, I said quietly, show me today’s route.”.
Jim pulled out his map case, opened it and studied the map under the clear plastic cover for a few minutes. Then, looking around into the thick fog enveloping us, he struggled to get his bearings from the terrain around us in order to orient the map. Finally he gave up due to the poor visibility, he couldn’t see any terrain features. He took his primary compass from the same case and after opening the top, he placed it on the map with one edge of the compass lined up with the maps north-south grid lines. He rotated the map until the needle and the lines matched up. Satisfied, he lifted the compass to his eyes, rotated to the right a few degrees and nodded in the direction of a large oak tree about 50 meters outside the thicket.
